Part of the plan says to move the RN into a separate plugin from the
org.eclipse.ui.ide plugin, probably something like
org.eclipse.ui.ide.resource.navigator

The thing that I got stuck with is it would seem this would require a new
top-level plugin, and I have heard there is a long hard approval process
required for this sort of thing. Nothing that's going to happen today.

I also know there are many projects that get around this by having a
top-level plugin that's not related to the plugins that are in the product
(Like p2 for example).

What should I do about this? And sorry for asking about it at the last
minute. It only dawned on my a couple of hours ago that I could not do
this by myself.